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Comment by bostonsre | Hacker News Reader

> It's not salary per se but those that benefit by renting out units or those for whom this has saved them money I've found typically get so defensive about AirBnB to the point of calling detractors NIMBYists and the like.

Isn't the other side of the argument also concerned with housing prices and money?

> To be clear, I don't have a problem with people renting out rooms or an ADU on their property.

What do you see as the differences between airbnb and this? The line between the two seems a little blurry to me and it seems odd to me that someone could be completely fine with one but completely against the other.

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> What do you see as the differences between airbnb and this?

Not OP, but I share a similar view. If you're renting out a room of an ADU, you're still occupying the property and using it as housing yourself. The whole difference is that the sole use of the property is not taking it off the long term rental/buying market. With spare rooms/ADUs, that's not the purpose of the property, whereas with renting out a whole house it is.

Don't some listings on airbnb do the exact same thing? Would those be ok from airbnb if they stopped the other types? Is the only difference having a landlord on site?

I absolutely would be more accepting of it if they only allowed ones where the landlord was on-site, yes.

In Denver the law is that a person can only AirBnb a property that is their primary residence. If you have an ADU or want to rent a room you can do that full time. We rent our place when we travel..

It seems like a good compromise to me.

I would agree with that, and then fine AirBnB itself whenever anyone breaks the rules. That'll get them to take it seriously as well. I definitely see nothing wrong with you renting out your house while gone on vacation. The issue I have is when people buy a house and take it off the market to rent it out to short term leasers.

I agree with all this.

I'll further add that the landlord being there means they can't simply foist loud, unruly or unsafe temporary residents on an area where he or she does not have any skin in the game. That is, they have to suffer the consequences too. This invariably will lead to less negative externalities.

But this fits into a broader belief that I have, which is that cities should generally be for the residents of them first and foremost before being simply an investment vehicle for a foreign pension fund (for example).

That would mean that in NYC, for example, you get charged much higher property tax if you yourself are not a NYC resident (or possibly NYS resident).

> But this fits into a broader belief that I have, which is that cities should generally be for the residents of them first and foremost

It's so weird to me to think that this isn't considered the default view. I 100% agree with it, and think it should be the obvious view, but it's clear there's many who do disagree.

It is the default view. The problem is that our tax structures and zoning regulations incentivize this behavior. We need a land value tax to really put an end to it, and get rid of the laws that stop housing supply from meeting demand in cities across the US.

Yea, I think future residents should be allowed to join a city without being penalized. The artificially constrained housing supply and NIMBY-ism seems very unamerican to me.

In some ways it’s very American, it’s just the side of America that we’re not proud of. Property owners benefit from the status quo of housing scarcity, and they are the most powerful bloc in local politics.

Yea, very true.. there usually seems to be a strong resistance to change around giving others an opportunity to chase the american dream that is mirrored pretty well with artificially constrained housing supply/nimbyism. There is always that contingent of the population that wants to close the door behind them to prevent others from attaining what they have already reached. At least we always seem to have that opposite view point to oppose them.

The blurry line you are referencing is actually quite clear legally: is the accommodation short-term or not? (defined by the regulatory environment)

Wherein Airbnb stays are usually short-term and renting out an ADU is usually longer term

The person I was replying to enumerated a list of reasons for airbnb being bad. The reasons he gave seem like there could be a good amount of overlap between non-airbnb rentals and airbnb rentals.

The law is just the current rules that are defined for a given jurisdiction. I don't think they codify the reasoning behind why the law was enacted, what it was looking to prevent, or how it hoped to achieve that. The reasoning behind why these laws were enacted could range from genuine concern for safety to nymby-ish "because I want my house to appreciate in value more".

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